Moose
The moose or elk is the world's tallest, largest and heaviest extant species of deer and the only extant species in the genus Alces. It is also the tallest, and the second-largest, land animal in North America, falling short only to the American bison in body mass. Most adult male moose have broad, palmate antlers; other members of the deer family have pointed antlers with a dendritic configuration. Moose inhabit the circumpolar boreal forests or temperate broadleaf and mixed forests of the Northern Hemisphere, thriving in cooler, temperate areas as well as subarctic climates.
Hunting shaped the relationship between moose and humans, both in Eurasia and North America. Prior to the early modern period, moose were one of many valuable sources of sustenance for certain North American Indians. Hunting and habitat loss have reduced the moose's range; this fragmentation has led to sightings of "urban moose" in some areas. The moose has been reintroduced to some of its former habitats. Currently, the greatest populations occur in Canada. Additionally, substantial numbers are found in Alaska, the northern states of the contiguous United States, Fennoscandia, the Baltic states, the Caucasus region, Poland, Eastern Europe, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, and Russia.
Predominantly a browser, the moose's diet consists of both terrestrial and aquatic vegetation, depending on the season, with branches, twigs and dead wood making up a large portion of their winter diet. Predators of moose include wolves, bears, humans, wolverines, and orcas. Unlike most other deer species, moose do not form herds and are solitary animals, aside from calves who remain with their mother until the cow begins estrus again. At this point, the cow chases her calf away. Although generally slow-moving and sedentary, moose can become defensively aggressive, and move very quickly if angered or startled. Their mating season in the autumn features energetic fights between males competing for a female.
Moose have played a prominent role in the culture of people in the Northern Hemisphere. Evidence suggests they were hunted by humans as far back as the most recent Ice Age.
Etymology
Alces alces is called a "moose" in North American English, but an "elk" in British English. The word "elk" in North American English refers to a completely different species of deer, Cervus canadensis, also called the wapiti. A mature male moose is called a bull, a mature female a cow, and an immature moose of either sex a calf.In Classical Antiquity, the animal was known as ἄλκη in Greek and alces in Latin, words probably borrowed from a Germanic language or another language of northern Europe. By the 8th century, during the Early Middle Ages, the species was known in, derived from the Proto-Germanic: *elho-, *elhon- and possibly connected with the. Later, in Middle English, the species became known as elk, elcke, or elke, also appearing in the Latinized form alke, with the alce borrowed directly from the.
The word "elk" remained in usage because of English-speakers' familiarity with the species in Continental Europe; however, without any living animals around to serve as a reference, the meaning became rather vague, and by the 17th century "elk" had a meaning similar to "large deer". Dictionaries of the 18th century simply described "elk" as a deer that was "as large as a horse".
The word "moose" had first entered English by 1606 and is borrowed from the Algonquian languages, and possibly involved forms from multiple languages mutually reinforcing one another. The Proto-Algonquian form was *mo·swa.
Description
On average, an adult moose stands high at the shoulder, which is more than higher than the next-largest deer on average, the wapiti. The tail is short and vestigial in appearance; unlike other ungulates the moose tail is too short to swish away insects. Males normally weigh from and females typically weigh, depending on racial or clinal as well as individual age or nutritional variations. The head-and-body length is, with the vestigial tail adding only a further. The largest of all the races is the Alaskan subspecies, which can stand over at the shoulder, has a span across the antlers of and averages in males and in females. Typically, however, the antlers of a mature bull are between. The largest confirmed size for this species was a bull shot at the Yukon River in September 1897 that weighed and measured high at the shoulder. There have been reported cases of even larger moose, including a bull killed in 2004 that weighed, and a bull that reportedly scaled, but none are authenticated and some may not be considered reliable.Antlers
Bull moose have antlers like other members of the deer family. The size and growth rate of antlers is determined by diet and age. Size and symmetry in the number of antler points signals bull moose health and cows may select mates based on antler size and symmetry. Bull moose use their antlers to display dominance, to discourage competition, and to spar or fight rivals.The male's antlers grow as cylindrical beams projecting on each side of the head at right angles to the midline of the skull, and then fork. The lower prong of this fork may be either simple, or divided into two or three tines, with some flattening. Most moose have antlers that are broad and palmate with tines along the outer edge. Within the ecologic range of the moose in Europe, northern populations display the palmate pattern of antlers, while the antlers of European moose residing the southerly portion of its range are typically of the cervina dendritic pattern and comparatively small, perhaps due to evolutionary pressures of hunting by humans, who prize the large palmate antlers. European moose with antlers intermediate between the palmate and the dendritic form are found in the middle of the north-south range. Moose with antlers have more acute hearing than those without antlers; a study of trophy antlers using a microphone found that the palmate antler acts as a parabolic reflector, amplifying sound at the moose's ear.
The antlers of mature Alaskan adult bull moose have a maximum spread greater than. By the age of 13, moose antlers decline in size and symmetry. The widest spread recorded was across. An Alaskan moose also holds the record for the heaviest weight at.
Antler beam diameter, not the number of tines, indicates age. In North America, moose antlers are usually larger than those of Eurasian moose and have two lobes on each side, like a butterfly. Eurasian moose antlers resemble a seashell, with a single lobe on each side. In the North Siberian moose, the posterior division of the main fork divides into three tines, with no distinct flattening. In the common moose this branch usually expands into a broad palmation, with one large tine at the base and a number of smaller snags on the free border. There is, however, a Scandinavian breed of the common moose in which the antlers are simpler and recall those of the East Siberian animals. The palmation appears to be more marked in North American moose than in the typical Scandinavian moose.
After the mating season males drop their antlers to conserve energy for the winter. A new set of antlers will then regrow in the spring. Antlers take three to five months to fully develop, making them one of the fastest growing animal organs. Antler growth is "nourished by an extensive system of blood vessels in the skin covering, which contains numerous hair follicles that give it a 'velvet' texture." This requires intense grazing on a highly-nutritious diet. By September the velvet is removed by rubbing and thrashing which changes the colour of the antlers. Immature bulls may not shed their antlers for the winter, but retain them until the following spring. Birds, carnivores and rodents eat dropped antlers as they are full of protein and moose themselves will eat antler velvet for the nutrients.
If a bull moose is castrated, either by accidental or chemical means, he will shed his current set of antlers within two weeks and then immediately begin to grow a new set of misshapen and deformed antlers that he will wear the rest of his life without ever shedding again; similarly deformed antlers can result from a deficiency of testosterone caused by cryptorchidism or old age. These deformed antlers are composed of living bone which is still growing or able to grow, since testosterone is needed to stop antler growth; they may take one of two forms. "Cactus antlers" or velericorn antlers usually retain the approximate shape of a normal moose's antlers but have numerous pearl-shaped exostoses on their surface; being made of living bone, they are easily broken but can grow back. Perukes are constantly growing, tumor-like antlers with a distinctive appearance similar to coral. Like roe deer, moose are more likely to develop perukes, rather than cactus antlers, than the more developed cervine deer, but unlike roe deer, moose do not suffer fatal decalcification of the skull as a result of peruke growth, but rather can support their continued growth until they become too large to be fully supplied with blood. The distinctive-looking perukes are the source of several myths and legends among many groups of Inuit as well as several other tribes of indigenous peoples of North America.
In extremely rare circumstances, a cow moose may grow antlers. This is usually attributed to a hormone imbalance.